Tuesday, September 23, 2008

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human MilkPOSTED: 1:48 pm EDT September 23, 2008UPDATED: 11:51 pm EDT September 23, 2008WATERBURY, Vt. -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman."PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health."The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk.""We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a spokesperson for Ben and Jerry's.

"Turn on the TV, shut out the lights, for Roy Rogers is riding tonight..."

Black and White (Under age 40? You won't understand.) You could hardly see for all the snow, Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go. Pull a chair up to the TV set, 'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'

My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting boardwith the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning. My mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too.

Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring)-- no beach closures then. The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PAsystem. We all took gym, not PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us howmuch safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an option, even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself. I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed! We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front step, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

(anonymous...sorry I didn't write it!)

How did we ever survive?

.....A song for all of us over 40....ummm...even 50+.....a wistful look back....

Sunday, September 21, 2008

So sue me! It's been since last month to jump on and regale the web with my earnest wisdom...just a few things have been occupying my time...really...but with school starting and a big event that happened this past Friday..... and grading papers... and trying to keep my entrepreneur students awake after they eat lunch at the PLNU caf...it has been a busy few weeks...but there is much to talk about!

Yepper depper we had about 425 good folks for our Dealmakers of the Year Business Breakast last Friday at the Kona Kai on Shelter Island...and the morning sun was beautiful coming up over the city of San Diego and the boats in the marina looked great...and we spent a few hours honoring value creators in the community...good finalists and winners all...but I am very proud of the many students engaging and taking care of business...they looked great and presented the school very well...so nicely done to all of you...you can read more at...

SUCH AS WHAT IN THE &$?!#@ HAS HAPPENED TO MY RETIREMENT FUNDS! Arghhh!

I mean just the other day I was worth almost enough to get my 1975 AMC Pacer repainted...but now this is going to have to wait for another day...well...decade...until my accounts begin to recover...so what happened?

...it really is rather simple...we just spend too much...me included...and this country is up to its ears in debt...how much you ask?...try this on for size...

We are approaching 50 TRILLION IN DEBT! And we are arguing about silly trivial things in our government...all the while other countries hostile to the U.S. are buying our debt up and...someday....someway....somehow...can act as a bully landlord to us...

....so at the end of the day we need to start blaming ourselves...for this awful mess...and yes there is plenty of blame to go around from inept SEC regulators who emphasize academic solutions over practical realities...and corrupt financial service firms and their leaders who bulked up on debt like heroin addicts...and greedy homeowners who watched "Flip This House" too many times...

WHAT TO DO?

...I really think we need to start rethinking this...and because I am a teacher I think that our colleges and universities have been failing our students miserably in this area...we are proficient at having them learn management principles and 18th century poets and attending chapel and articles of the constitution...

...but very few that I meet in college can balance a checkbook or have any idea what debt is doing to them...and why they need to wait until they have cash to buy the next thing they think they need (if we cannot persuade them that they don't really need it)...and we do nothing to emphasize the value of investing and saving and legacy creation over buying the latest X Box update...

...but we have to do this in creative ways...and I think business profs and entrepreneurs and small business owners and banks and financial institutions need to rethink this whole topic together...and develop better tools and approaches to explaing the value of delayed gratification to our youth...

I have posted a small article (400 words...sheesh! Tough to do!) that the PLNU newspaper asked me to write on the global crisis...I hope it helps in some small way...

We will talk later...I am going to stand by my mailbox and wait for my Schwab statements...probably postage due!

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All of us—not just those involved in business either as students, academics or in practice—need to be deeply concerned about what is going on in the financial markets. What is occurring is the destruction of over 100 years of the financial system of the United States. This is no mere academic exercise, as I have heard the phrase used by several commentators this past week that we are “on the verge of a Depression.” Couple this market turmoil with the protracted California state budget deadlock and the issue is driven home even further, for grants, reimbursements and government services are drying up. What caused this? While there are many nuances to the crisis there are several prime culprits including greed (not just on Wall Street but among all of us in accumulating entirely too much debt for homes, cars, vacations, etc.); lack of governmental oversight and leadership through the Securities and Exchange Commission especially as relates to trading abuses; woefully inadequate lending standards for home purchases through much of this decade with little concern for the ability of the borrower to pay the loan back; and the lack of fiscal transparency by some investment banking firms. All of this had led to a “perfect storm” of economic woes. None of us are even beginning to think about the slowing European economy and housing deflation and their own mounting woes. It is an escalating global crisis. When the economy is in crisis this manifests itself in uncertainty among all of us. We will see this crisis play itself out on many fronts including a rapidly slowing job market, lack of loans retirement and investment accounts. There will be a rebound, perhaps sooner rather than later, but it is too soon to determine if we are at a solid bottom. For the typical student, faculty or staff member of the PLNU community, what can we do in this time of turmoil? Here are some practical suggestions:· Cut back on excess spending. Brew your own coffee. Use coupons. Car pool.· If you are a junior or senior get busy now to prepare for graduation. Network. Attend events. Take advantage of career resources. Get an internship. Volunteer.· If you have a job now, re-assert your interest and value in your position and the company. Stand out from the crowd. Excel. This will provide security.· Vote for leadership. We are in an election year. Look for leadership and not pithy statements from candidates. Demand political accountability from all parties.· Remain grateful and faithful. We are people who have a deeper calling. We must look beyond this moment and keep fixed on eternal things.